Book Notes|1 May 1978

Legal Medicine Annual.

Abstract

Forensic medicine is sometimes regarded as an esoteric and remote province of the profession, populated by pathologists who get big pay for testimony at murder trials or play medical detective in weird cases that come to the morgue (see review of Autopsy, this issue). A bit of the bizarre does appear in this annual, such as the review of 43 cases of autoerotic asphyxial deaths (self-hanging), but a number of these reviews are on topics important in internal medicine: halothane-induced hepatic damage, pacemaker failures, examination of the rape victim and the accused rapist, informed consent, duty to consult and refer,